


Let the Right One In Redux

by wheel_pen



Series: Daisy [26]
Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Naughtiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:52:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damon, Alaric, Elena, and Daisy attempt to rescue Stefan from Pearl’s vampires. “I had promised to bring Stefan home safely. I had promised to protect Elena. I had broken promises before.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let the Right One In Redux

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Daisy, my original character, moved to Mystic Falls about a year ago. There is something special about her.
> 
> 2\. This series begins with the first season of the TV show and completely diverges about halfway through the first season. Facts revealed later on the show might not make it into this series.
> 
> 3\. Underage warning: This series may contain human or human-like teenagers, in high school, in sexual situations.
> 
> 4\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate being able to play in this universe.

Elena wanted so badly to be part of rescuing Stefan that it was difficult to even get her out of the room so Damon and I could talk. I kept expecting him to just drag me off and let her think what she wanted about it, but instead he waited until she left on her own, finally, to take a call from her aunt about her whereabouts.

Immediately Damon sat down next to me on the couch. “How do we get Stefan out of that house?” he asked urgently.

He hadn’t given a detailed description of what he’d seen from the porch, which I surmised was because it was obvious Stefan was being tortured and he didn’t want to upset Elena with that news. At the thought of this there were a lot of solutions I wanted to suggest—violent, dramatic plans that Damon would be impressed by, that the tomb vampires, even Pearl, would fear. But there were many ways this scenario could play out, and sometimes short-term satisfaction had to be sacrificed for long-term progress.

Pearl would probably appreciate that mindset, from what Damon had told me of her. I doubted she had approved of or even knew about this latest development, despite what Damon seemed to think.

“You need someone to get into the house and lure the owner out so you can kill her,” I told him matter-of-factly, and he nodded in agreement; that would break the entrance barrier and allow him to go inside. “Make sure there’s no other humans residing there,” I added.

“Got that,” he told me shortly. “Can _you_ get into the house? Get in, get me in, leave,” he specified.

“I was thinking of Alaric Saltzman,” I countered, avoiding his question. Damon didn’t really like this suggestion, though. “He has experience hunting vampires,” I reminded him. “And some weapons to use against them.”

“No, he’s such a—“ He broke off without finishing the sentence.

“Three solid objections to him?” I requested. Damon growled but didn’t present any. “He’ll make a good ally,” I predicted, “and we need all of those we can get right now. Rescuing Stefan is the perfect reason to bring him in.”

Damon rolled his eyes. “Right, because G-d knows if _I_ were in trouble, no one would rush to save me.”

I smiled at him and brushed his hair back. “I would,” I pointed out. “And so would Stefan.”

Damon sighed. “Yeah. The little twerp.” He listened a moment to make sure Elena was still in the other room, then lowered his voice anyway. “He was already hurt when I saw him, and they—staked him in the side while I was watching,” he reported, his tone flat but his eyes blazing with fury. “And he hadn’t recovered from the fight last night—“

“We’ll get him out,” I promised. “Talk to Mr. Saltzman.” And if for some reason this plan didn’t work out as expected—I would _personally_ make sure Stefan made it home.

Elena walked back into the room, shaking her phone like she did when she was preoccupied. “Jenna says the roads are getting worse,” she announced, seeing the weather as one more complication we didn’t need.

Damon stood and pulled me up as well. “Let’s check out Saltzman with his magic ring,” he suggested flippantly.

Elena looked slightly startled—first at the idea itself, then at the fact that it was such a good one. “Of course! He has all those stake-shooting guns and vervain darts, and the ring keeps him from being killed by vampires. Er, permanently,” she amended.

Damon stared at her for a beat. “Are you done? Good. Because I knew all that, and I wasn’t asking for your opinion. Let’s go.”

Elena rolled her eyes and grabbed her coat. “Where are we going to look for him?” she asked.

“At school,” I said, before Damon could make a suggestion. “I saw his car there when we were driving by earlier,” I added when they both looked at me.

“The man has no life,” Damon judged.

 

It was but one of many insults Damon heaped on our potential ally, but there was no use pretending Damon was ever going to act any differently, no matter how important the cause. He couldn’t even keep from snidely calling Stefan “the one who lifts you up where you belong” to Elena, which promptly got the song stuck in my head. But in the end Mr. Saltzman—Ric—agreed to help us, partly because killing vampires was exactly what he’d come to Mystic Falls to do, and partly because of all the vampires he knew, Stefan was the one he’d like to see live the longest. But a surprisingly large chunk of his decision, I felt, rested on seeing Damon’s genuine concern for both his brother and Elena—cloaked though it was in unflattering remarks and dismissive gestures. I hardly even had to say anything myself.

“I’ll get my things,” Ric told us.

“Good. Lemme talk to you a minute,” Damon said to me, grabbing my arm and whisking me down the hall. Ric and Elena were left standing in bemusement at the door to his classroom.

Damon backed me up against the lockers, leaning in to speak in a low voice. “I didn’t hear you clamoring to get in on the action,” he observed.

“Is that what you expected to hear?”

It wasn’t. “You’re not really a stab-‘em-in-the-heart kind of girl,” he commented.

“Nice of you to notice.”

“What I would like you to do,” he went on seriously, “is stay in the car and protect Elena. Is that gonna work for you?”

I wasn’t surprised by his idea. “I think I could help you more if I were closer to the house,” I countered.

“G-------t, I am not really _asking_ ,” he snapped at me, punching the locker beside me so hard it dented. I raised an eyebrow. “You’re gonna stay in the car or you’re not gonna come at all.”

It was Damon’s version of a protective gesture, threats and all, and I reached up to touch his cheek affectionately. “And if Elena also happens to be in the car, I can keep her safe,” I agreed.

“That’s what I had in mind,” he confirmed through gritted teeth. He was wound tight by the whole situation; obviously it didn’t take much to set him off.

“We’ll get him out,” I repeated, leaning up to give him a quick kiss.

“Then let’s go do it.”

 

Elena was anxious and restless sitting in the car, and I couldn’t say I felt any differently. We had parked far from the house to avoid detection, which meant I couldn’t even see what was happening. Our purpose was merely to sit and wait. I should have been used to that by now, but both Damon and Stefan had become important to me.

Elena was fingering Ric’s bag that he’d left in the front seat and finally pulled one of the vervain darts from it. “Daisy,” she began in a determined tone.

“Should we hit the house?” I asked preemptively.

“ _Yes_ ,” she agreed immediately, turning to look at me.

“Let’s go around to the east side,” I suggested, zipping up my coat. “Hopefully we’ll avoid Damon on the south.” Because the wrath of random vampires was one thing, but Damon’s was something else entirely. I did not feet at all bad about breaking my agreement with him—only about getting caught, which was inevitable.

Each armed with a stake and a vervain dart we scrambled through the drenched woods towards the house. Most of the vampires weren’t able to go out in daylight, but had I been in charge I would’ve posted lookouts at the windows in all directions. Pearl’s hubris would be her downfall, at least in this case. Elena and I reached the house and flattened ourselves against the wall, hearing voices within. The vampires were enjoying their modern luxuries like TV and recorded music, the sounds drowning out our footsteps—another foolish move.

I nodded towards a stairwell heading down—I would keep my torture victims in the cellar, personally. Not that I’d given it much thought. Elena agreed, though, and we scrambled down to the outside door, which was—okay, it was locked, they weren’t _completely_ incompetent, but that was easy enough to get around.

We both jumped back when we saw a guard sitting at the end of the hallway… immersed in listening to his iPod. Really, this was just too easy. He stood suddenly, though, perhaps having caught a glimpse of us—or the scent of warm blood—or maybe he finally remembered he had a job to do.

Elena and I both tensed, waiting for him to reach us (and he was _walking_ at a normal speed—did I mentioned how unimpressed I was with these people?)—then suddenly Damon leaped out from the side and staked the man through the heart.

“Are you f-----g insane?” he snarled at us.

“Stefan must be that way,” I redirected, pointing towards the door the man had been guarding, and there was no stopping Elena after that. I barely grabbed her before she could barge through the door into who knew what situation, instead waiting for Damon to peer in first. When he finally pushed the door open all the way, I had my first pang of regret that I had let Elena leave the car. Stefan was shirtless, blood dripping from numerous injuries, his hands bound and stretched above his head until his feet barely touched the floor. He was still alive and he would recover, but the sight of him this way would be burned into Elena’s mind forever.

Damon went for the rope first. “Rope… soaked in vervain,” Stefan croaked in warning.

Damon backed off immediately. “Right, cut that rope,” he directed Elena and I, wiping his hands on his jeans. He caught Stefan when Elena chopped through the rope with a pair of garden shears and held him, doubled over and exhausted, while we untied his hands and feet.

“Get his jacket,” Damon ordered us brusquely. He transferred his burden to Elena. “Get out to the car. Now. Go.”

“Wait,” Stefan countered. He nodded towards the one other person in the room, a vampire who had been tied to a chair and staked through the legs to keep him immobile. “Take those out,” Stefan told Elena, his voice barely above a whisper.

Damon was hovering near the door to the rest of the house. “There’s no time!” he hissed, but Elena did it anyway and a nod of understanding passed between Stefan and the other man. Interesting.

Damon did not find it so. “Get them the f—k back to the car,” he growled at me, grabbing my arm and shoving me out the door we’d entered. “I’ll provide a distraction.” He went deeper into the house, and we went outside.

As Elena and I dragged Stefan through the woods to the car, my mind raced. No way would this be so simple. Inefficient villain though he was, Frederick would eventually realize something was wrong. And he seemed like the type who didn’t give up what he wanted easily—which meant he would come after Stefan and Elena.

Damon would tell me to stay at the car and protect them if I could. Stefan was so weak he could barely walk; in his current condition he would be no match for Frederick. Elena could be tossed aside like a twig, disposed of immediately if Frederick felt like it. But Damon—and presumably Ric, once he realized Elena and I had left the car—would be back at the house facing down the remaining dozen or more vampires, most of whom were older than Damon and thus more powerful. Pearl would put a stop to it when she returned, but with this weather that could easily be too late.

I had promised to bring Stefan home safely. I had promised to protect Elena.

I had broken promises before.

“There’s blood in the cooler,” I reminded Elena as we approached the car. “Have him drink it as soon as you get in.”

“Where are you going?” she asked. Of course the answer was obvious, but it was one of those questions you had to ask anyway.

“Back to the house,” I said as we put Stefan in the car. “Blood, then get out of here. We’ll meet you at home.” And I turned and left them there, at Frederick’s mercy—of which we already knew he had precious little. But I couldn’t leave Damon.

The choice had not really been difficult to make.

I came in through the back of the house and hit the front foyer just as Damon and Ric were backing into it from the porch—half a dozen vampires advanced on us from the yard. Optimistically Damon shut the front door between us and locked it.

He was not pleased to see me. “Where’s Elena and Stefan?!” he demanded.

“At the car,” I assured him, doing a quick count of the bodies I could see. Damon and Ric had definitely done some damage to Pearl’s group.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Ric remarked. I guess someone had to say it.

“Well no s—t,” Damon snapped at him, glaring at me.

There was a banging on the outside of the door and Damon and Ric tensed to spring. “Get behind me,” Damon ordered. When I hesitated a fraction of a second too long he added, “F-----g do what I say for once!” I got behind him.

The pounding on the door continued.

And continued.

And continued.

“Are vampires really stopped by a locked door?” Ric asked in disbelief.

Suddenly we heard a new voice outside. “What is this?” Pearl demanded. “What’s going on here?” The door opened and she marched into the house with her daughter, Anna, surveying her dead followers with genuine, if contained, distress. “What have you done?” she asked of Damon, eyes blazing.

Even in his heightened state of tension Damon could see that she’d had no knowledge of Frederick’s plan and he actually started to relax, even as Ric tensed further. “What’ve _I_ done?” he repeated indignantly. “ _Your_ band of merry miscreants was using my brother as a pincushion. And I don’t like that.”

“I assure you, those responsible for this will be punished,” Pearl said coldly, and I almost felt sorry for those deemed ‘responsible.’ Almost.

“Good,” Damon replied flippantly, wagging the stake he carried at her. “If you want this little deal to work, you better keep your dogs on a tight leash. If I had a good side, this is _not_ the way to get on it.” And he grabbed my hand and pulled me between the two vampires and out the door, Ric following close behind.

Once we got off the porch and safely away from the house, the surviving vampires watching us with open curiosity, Damon said to Ric, “Don’t take this the wrong way,” and slipped an arm around his waist. He did the same to me but without even a glance—I was being punished. Then he picked us up and whooshed down to the car, dropping us with less care than usual when he saw Frederick’s body slumped at the foot of a tree.

“S—t,” said Damon, zipping over to the car with its broken passenger-side window. To our relief, Stefan and Elena sat in the back seat—subdued and oddly distant from each other, but alive (more or less). “Hmm,” Damon noted cryptically. Then he called back to Ric and I, who were still approaching. “Hurry up and get in the car.”

Ric took the back seat, forcing Stefan to scoot closer to Elena, which shouldn’t have been a problem—but both of them looked distinctly uncomfortable at the proximity, and Elena even turned away to stare out the window. As I leaned around to look at them from the passenger seat—I saw the bite mark on Elena’s wrist. And I noticed Stefan was looking a lot better than he had just minutes ago.

Well. That explained things.

“There’s some blood in the cooler back there,” I reminded them.

“Sit the f—k down,” Damon snapped at me, pushing me back around. “Put your seatbelt on.” He started speeding away from the woods and I cranked the heat up for those who were bothered by the cold dampness.

I met Ric’s gaze in the rearview mirror and, after a thought, he reached down to the cooler and pulled out the plastic bottle of blood. I could see the grimace on his face as he looked at it, but then he passed it to Stefan.

“Oh. Thank you,” Stefan told him sincerely, not too preoccupied to mind his manners. He twisted the top off the bottle and paused to sniff it.

“It’s pig,” I told him, and his gaze snapped up to mine in the mirror. “But there’s some herbs in it to help you heal, so it might taste a little funny.”

Stefan took a sip and immediately coughed. “Do the herbs taste like vodka?” he asked, with wan but welcome humor.

“That was _my_ contribution to the recipe,” Damon commented with a smirk.

We dropped Ric off at home first. “Thank you for helping us!” I called out the window.

“Yes, thank you, I appreciate it,” Stefan understated quickly.

Ric’s expression said he couldn’t quite believe he’d actually _helped_ vampires this evening—and that he was definitely going to spend the rest of the night restocking his anti-vampire arsenal.

The four of us drove home in strained silence. Damon was angry at me, and maybe at Elena, too. And he was worried about Stefan instead of relieved, his eyes constantly flicking up to the rearview mirror to check on him. Stefan had scooted away from Elena as soon as Ric had left the car; the two of them kept shooting each other little looks but without ever really connecting. There was clearly something huge between them they needed to discuss, and it wasn’t hard to guess what that was.

Damon pulled into the garage and no one moved for a moment. “Well, that was fun,” he finally cracked. “I can see why you two like double-dating so much!”

Elena rolled her eyes in disgust and climbed out of the car, leaving the door open for Stefan to follow. Damon grabbed him as he got out. “I’ll take him upstairs,” he announced, heading into the house.

“I can walk by myself,” Stefan protested, then stumbled over nothing.

“Sure you can,” Damon replied, in a comfortingly patronizing tone.

Once they were reasonably out of earshot I turned to Elena. “Let’s get that taken care of,” I suggested, indicating her wrist. She’d wrapped the fabric of her jacket sleeve tightly around it and had been applying pressure to the wound, but the blood had still soaked through her sleeve. No wonder Damon had wanted to get away from her.

I took her to the nearest bathroom stocked with medical supplies and uncovered the injury. Two perfect curves of teeth marks were indented on her wrist. “He didn’t—“ she started to say as I tended the wound. “I wanted him to. I made him. He didn’t want to, but that other vampire was coming and—“ Her voice broke. “I thought he was going to die!”

“Shh, it’s okay now,” I told her, putting my arm around her. I didn’t ask why she didn’t give him the blood I’d prepared—with the extra boost from my own blood I’d mixed in (not strictly human, I felt, and much diluted anyway), Stefan would’ve been able to defend himself just fine. But maybe there hadn’t been time. “Stefan is back, he’ll be fine now.”

There was something else troubling her, though. “His face—after he… drank and he was fighting—he was like a different person,” she confessed, still uneasy about the memory. “He was wild, vicious… the way he looked at me…”

“That’s what they are, Elena,” I told her with a sigh. “Stefan is funny and kind and smart and sweet, but he’s also a hunter. Even if he’s just hunting animals… he’s a predator.” She didn’t look especially cheered by this reminder, but that wasn’t the point. “That side of them is always going to be there, no matter how ‘normal’ they act most of the time. It’s part of who they are now.”

“I don’t know if I can accept that,” Elena whispered, almost ashamed to admit it.

“Give it a little time,” I suggested. “It’s been a long day. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

She managed to smile, if tearfully, and squeezed my hand. “Thanks, Daisy. I always feel better after talking to you.”

That was the idea. “Maybe you should rinse out your jacket in cold water,” I suggested to her. “I can wash it for you if you want.”

“Thanks,” she repeated, sniffling up her tears and standing. Elena was admirably resilient, more so than people often realized.

I stood and left her in the bathroom, heading upstairs to see if Stefan needed anything. Before I could reach the stairs, however, Damon grabbed me and pulled me into the library, holding me close against him.

“I am so mad at you right now,” he informed me, though his tone said otherwise.

“I know,” I agreed, appreciating that he’d calmed down a little. “I was supposed to stay with Elena—“

“You could’ve gotten killed!” he interrupted. His words startled me, in a pleasant way.

“That wasn’t really very likely,” I told him with a slow smile.

“I just wanted you to stay in the car with Elena, where you’d both be safe,” he reiterated. “So I could get Stefan without worrying about you.”

“Well I was worried about _you_ ,” I pointed out, in case that wasn’t obvious. “I wanted to help you.”

“And a fine job you did,” he shot back sarcastically. “I mean, you must’ve killed—what was it— _zero_ vampires!”

“I prefer to act in a more subtle way,” I reminded him, as he adjusted his arms around me and pulled me even closer.

“Okay, for future reference, ‘subtlety’ and ‘a-s-kicking’ do not go together,” he told me patronizingly. “Maybe you don’t get that because you don’t watch enough TV. And you’re a girl.”

I grinned at his obnoxious remarks. “Do you remember what Ric said?” I hinted. “Do you really think those vampires were stopped by a locked door?”

His eyes narrowed. “ _You_ did that? So… your powers include being a _doorstop_? That’s sexy. I would definitely put that on your superhero résumé for sure.”

“I don’t want to be a superhero.”

“It must be nice to meet your goals in life.”

“I just want to protect _you_ ,” I added, leaning up to kiss him briefly. “For the moment,” I teased.

“And by _protect_ you mean…?” he asked expectantly.

“Notice Pearl didn’t go for your throat right away when she walked in the door,” I reminded him. I knew he was cataloging each admission, or potential admission, despite his dismissive attitude. It was a fine line for me to tread, between keeping my secrets and reassuring him I wouldn’t crumble under threat. “Also notice how stupid most of those vampires were,” I added in a light tone.

“You can’t take credit for _that_ ,” he decided correctly, his disdain for their preparation obvious. “No one on watch? A guard listening to his _iPod_? Come on, at that point it becomes survival of the fittest.”

For a moment we were quiet, just standing there in the dim library, our bodies swaying slightly together. “How’s Elena?” Damon finally asked.

“Freaked,” I informed him succinctly. “Did Stefan tell you what happened?”

“I got the gist of it,” Damon shrugged. “Had to chomp down on Elena to fight Frederick.”

I nodded against his chest. “I don’t think he wanted to. She had to insist,” I added. “But then once he started fighting—“

“Lemme guess: more Wolverine than Sir Galahad?” Damon said dryly.

“I think Wolverine’s sexy,” I remarked unexpectedly, and he chuckled against my hair. “But yeah, it scared her,” I went on in a more serious tone.

“Don’t think he didn’t notice.” Damon shook his head. “Why are those two so messed up? We are so much healthier than they are.”

I laughed. “I think that’s exactly… _two_ people who would agree with you. Including yourself.”

His expression turned serious. “Is Stefan gonna be okay?” he asked me.

My expression in return was not optimistic. “He’s off the animal-blood wagon for the first time in years… I’m not sure how he’ll react. You should keep an eye on him. It might be rough for a while.”

Damon sighed and leaned his head back against the bookshelf. “He was always sick as a kid… I thought, finally, he’s going to be strong. But then he had to be all holier-than-thou and only eat animals,” he commented sarcastically. “I don’t know if I _want_ him to give up people again,” he admitted, looking down at me.

“I think you want it to be his own choice, not something he was forced into,” I suggested.

He smirked. “I think you’re too charitable in your assessment of me,” he claimed, but I wasn’t so sure.

I leaned my head against his chest. “I think we’ll all be okay. Eventually.”

“Wow, how insightful,” he teased, and I smiled. “Got any stock tips? Who should I bet on in the big game?”

“Buy XBL, sell DGE, bet on the Raiders,” I quipped.

“I’m gonna look those up,” he promised. Then he turned his head, listening to something in another room. “S—t,” he sighed, his expression tired. “Elena’s on the phone with her brother. They just found Vicki’s body.”

“Why didn’t you burn it?” I chided him. That was the first rule of vampire disposal.

“Oh, Elena was all bloody and feisty in her little nurse costume,” he remembered, “and I had just broken a date with this odd girl dressed as a crack in the sidewalk… I wasn’t thinking straight.” He smirked thinly at me. “I didn’t have you around to tell me what to do.”

“I offered to help,” I reminded him.

“Yes, well, clearly I wasn’t aware of your magical door-barring abilities at the time,” he said, rolling his eyes. “They would’ve been so useful. Or you could’ve kept the corpse _calm_ for me.”

I stretched up and gave him a kiss. “I better go back to Elena,” I told him. “We’ll probably go over to Matt’s and sit with him and his mom.”

Damon shook his head. “You are a morbid girl,” he declared. “You see ‘house of sorrow’ the way other people see ‘all-night buffet’ or ‘live nude girls.’” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, not the way _everyone_ sees those,” he amended.

“I just like to help people feel better,” I pointed out. My attempt to not sound defensive did not entirely work.

“No, I know,” he assured me, kissing my forehead. “It’s teamwork. I make people feel bad, you make them feel better. Although _technically_ ,” he remembered, “ _Stefan_ killed Vicki, so…”

“I just wouldn’t get involved in the whole thing right now,” I advised him dryly. “You’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

_Epilogue_

I heard a noise in the front hallway and found Pearl standing just outside the doorway. She’d boldly opened the door to the house but had found, to her surprise, that she couldn’t come in.

I walked up to her with a Miss Manners-perfect smile. “You’re Pearl, right?” I asked, as if there was any chance I didn’t know that. “I’m Daisy.” I didn’t offer to shake her hand, though.

“Damon’s girlfriend,” she acknowledged. “Do you live here now?” A human resident of the house would explain why she suddenly couldn’t enter.

I gave her a look that could be construed as ‘yes.’ “There’s a patio around back,” I told her. “You can talk to the boys there.”

“Thank you,” she replied, stiff and formal. She was from an era when rules for social conduct—even between vampires—were more strictly observed, and she understood their importance. “I came to see how Stefan was doing.” She seemed sincere, but cagey.

“I’ll let them know you’re here.” Pearl backed up, starting to head around the house; but as she did so I stepped over the threshold, outside the protective shell of the house, and her eyes widened. Was this a test? A pretext? Or was I just incredibly stupid?

“I wanted to mention something to you,” I added, serious but with no attempt to be menacing. “I’m willing to wait and see if you’re a threat or an ally.” Her eyebrows arched sharply. “I like to keep an open mind about things.” I stepped closer and she didn’t back up; why should she? “But I think my boyfriend has beautiful eyes,” I went on, my voice turning darker, “and I don’t appreciate what you did to them. Don’t f—k with me,” I warned her, very slowly. Then I turned and went back into the house, leaving her standing on the front sidewalk wondering just _why_ she hadn’t been able to threaten me back.

 

_Missing Scene_

Damon helped Stefan up the stairs with one shoulder under his arm, going more slowly and patiently than was the norm for him. Between Elena’s blood and Daisy’s concoction, he wasn’t doing so bad physically, but emotionally he was a wreck. Though being Stefan, he tried to contain himself.

“There you go.” Damon eased his brother down onto the edge of the bed and then sat beside him, taking in his faraway expression and bloody clothing with a critical eye. “Any injuries you didn’t want to tell the girls about?” he asked conversationally.

It took a moment for his words to sink in. “Oh. No,” Stefan assured him. He should’ve known Damon’s worst-case scenario would be worse than anyone else’s, including his captor’s. “Thank you,” he added belatedly, looking up at Damon. It seemed inadequate, but he knew his brother didn’t like a fuss made.

“I won’t know you really mean it until you send a card,” Damon quipped, and Stefan smiled wanly.

Damon saw the exact moment Stefan’s mind drifted back to whatever was most troubling him, and he put his arm around his brother’s shoulder and pulled him close. “The look on her face,” Stefan choked out, muffled against Damon’s chest. “She was… terrified. Of me. And disgusted.” Damon opened his mouth to respond but Stefan cut him off. “Don’t say anything,” he ordered. “Because anything you say will just be…”

Inappropriate? Untrue? Meaningless? “I know,” Damon sighed.

“I just didn’t want her to see that,” Stefan added distinctly.

“I know.” Forget about torturing him with vervain-soaked ropes. They should’ve just force-fed Stefan some human blood and let him loose with Elena watching. “You should go take a shower,” Damon suggested, by way of redirection. “Daisy’s got more Pig Surprise in the fridge. It’ll help.”

Stefan nodded dully and pulled away, wiping his eyes. Damon stood and headed for the door so his brother could have some privacy. “Thanks,” Stefan said again. Damon smirked at him and left, deciding that anything he said would just ruin the mood.


End file.
